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Tanker driver charged with gas theft

Chris Talley has had tougher cases to crack.

A day after the Savannah-Chatham property crimes detective arrested a teenager accused of using a stolen cellphone to unknowingly post his photo on the owner’s Facebook page, Talley halted another felony in progress — by arresting the driver of a gas tanker who was pumping fuel into 5-gallon buckets, paint cans and anything else he had.

Talley found the tanker at the corner of Hagood and Tuten about 8:40 a.m. Wednesday. The driver, identified as Michael Manigo, 32, is charged with theft by taking.

Manigo drove for Justin Davis Enterprise Inc. of Madison, Fla., Executives there had already been alerted by a client that they thought they were being shorted on gas on Manigo’s route, company president Justin Davis said.

Company estimates, provided to police, put Wednesday’s theft and some previous shortages at 1,200 gallons.

With retail gas prices in Savannah in the $3.35 a gallon range this week, that amounts to $4,020.

Theft from drivers isn’t as problematic as it was a couple years ago when gas was near $5 a gallon, Davis said, but fuel distributions companies like his have to stay vigilant.

The tanker held 9,000 gallons, Davis said, and while a loss of 500 gallons would have been immediately obvious, smaller losses take more time to detect.

“That stuff’s so valuable, we’re absolutely tracking every dollar,” he said. “...It was very obvious on this one there was a culprit, and they caught him red-handed.”